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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To genuinely believe people are much more ruder and 'entitled' these days?

222 replies

Snugglepalace · 28/03/2017 11:41

I may be heading down avenue 'grump old git' these days but people really piss me off recently.
For example, Dh works on the roads and they regularly get abuse from the general public, especially when it come to road closures.
Last week Dh and work mates were working on a road closure when a woman drives up to them demanding that they let her through, 'but the road is closed it says so on the board in front of you!' says Dh. 'No, no that doesn't apply to me I live on this road!' There are no houses on this road, it's a country lane used as a cut through for many.
Anyhow, Dh insists she can not get through, she argues with him, turns her steering wheel and drives right passed into road closure.
Thing is, the reason the road is closed is due to the fact there is a sodding great big hole in road which she proceeds to drive straight into getting car stuck in process Grin
Spends the next 4 hours sulking on grass verge waiting for recovery truck!
Wtf is wrong with folk?

OP posts:
Dixiechickonhols · 28/03/2017 19:33

In our last house we had a power cut and it turned out to be a major problem. Several workmens vans outside saying electricity northwest big trench in road workmen everywhere. Idiot neighbour from behind came across complaining he was working from home and why hadn't he been informed. I could barely keep a straight face as workman pointed to flames shooting from pavement and explained slowly that it was an emergency and no one was informed in advance.

itsatiggerday · 28/03/2017 20:00

I had an interesting conversation with a policeman when I stopped at the scene of an accident. Girl in the road had been knocked off her moped, lying just to one side of the centre white line, conscious and talking but we didn't want to move her obviously. I was the second car to stop, so left the first looking after her till the ambulance came and went to block cars from turning down the road. There was a slip turn about 100 yds further on that would put them on exactly the same route.

The number of drivers who tried to argue that they could get by alongside her was gobsmacking - would have meant them driving about a foot from her head. Ambulance and police turned up and the policeman came to take over saying he was impressed I hadn't been run down, since despite hi-vis jackets and official gear he'd had people try that.

DefinitelyOdd · 28/03/2017 20:02

I was on my way home from work last night and the road i used was closed. Being a bit disorientated I pulled up to the sign to ask the man if he knew where the diversion would bring me out so I could plan my route. He came over and snapped at me that the road was closed but in fairness did calm down when he heard my question.

During this conversation another car went speeding up and through the gap. He ended up head first into a digger. He was also most put out when I loudly told him to stop looking for sympathy from me as he was clearly a blind fool who was now causing me a delay because I had to wait for the police to come.

People are pissing idiots sometimes.

WhooooAmI24601 · 28/03/2017 20:12

On my way to work we have to drive through a street that has lots of cars parked on either side of the road. This morning I pulled in to allow someone to come through the other way. The car behind me obviously had no time to spare and decided to drive around me in the hopes of getting wherever he was going faster. And drove head-first into the bin lorry coming the other way. We all stood there giving details etc and he yelled at me "why the fuck didn't you let me know you were pulling in for a fucking lorry?". I can only assume he learned to drive at a time where indicators didn't exist, the stupid shite.

I think people are much ruder now than they were when I was a kid. At school if I'd been told my parents were getting a phone call I would have been horrified and they'd have made my life hell for a week or two as a consequence. Now when I have to speak to parents a huge proportion will look at me like I'm mad and immediately say "but he's young, it's not his fault" or "he can't control his temper yet, the other kids should lean to be nicer" or "there's no way he would have done that". What happened to parents just going "yeah, that was shitty, we'll work on that"?

faithinthesound · 28/03/2017 20:18

Lingotria
As long as she is being polite while she's doing it. There's a line, and it's just as unacceptable for an eight year old to cross it as it is for an adult.

I actually applaud you teaching her to stand up for herself - as long as you really are teaching her to do it in a well-mannered way.

faithinthesound · 28/03/2017 20:24

ChrisYoungFuckingRocks
Parent and child parking is not a legally mandated thing. It's a privilege, not a right, and your self appointed "policing" of them frankly makes you the twat, not the people parking in them.

PortiaCastis · 28/03/2017 20:25

Ooooohhh I've got another
Last summer we had a family stay in our largest let and they were rather grabby. I went to give them a key and welcome them and the husband started to mimic my accent. What a charmer this is Cornwall and I have a Cornish accent.
Anyway I gave them my liaison number and on the first night Mr entitled dickhead rang me and told me to get down the chipshop and bring the family's tea.
I said I was sorry and I'm not a waitress and I'd gladly give him directions to a fish restaurant and the booking was for self catering............ He's another name on the don't book again list

DorcasthePuffin · 28/03/2017 20:32

OH, where do I start?

We had a recent school parking incident in which a parent mounted the pavement and ran over the feet of an elderly resident who was kneeling in his own garden tending his own flowers.

Stand-off in a nearby café where the back room was being used for a kid's party. The toilet (the only one) was just at the entrance to that part, but kids' parents were standing around drinking coffee there. I needed to go to the loo, said excuse me, they turned their backs on me and tried to ignore me. When I refused to be ignored they told me this area was booked for a private party. "Not the toilet", I said, "You have to give all customers access to that". Eventually I got past them. When I came out, they had parked a baby in a highchair right in front of the door, and tried to insist that I couldn't come through because the baby was eating his lunch! Words may have been exchanged...

And finally, dc gets selected for a special activity at school. Other mother rings me to complain, asking why my child got his and not hers, because 'everybody knows' her child is better at that activity. She complained to the school too.

I have to say, I don't think it's only the old and rich who are entitled. I see it from everyone. Though I do think that the over-entitled parents in my area take every biscuit going (and one more - snatched from the jaws of another child - for little Raffaella).

Squeegle · 28/03/2017 20:38

I think it's the way our society encourages individualism, and applauds those who get on by being tossers - e.g. Philip Green, Nigel Farage etc! There is no sense of a common civility any more, or a caring about the common good. Can you imagine people today for example agreeing to bathe in a thimbleful of water, or agreeing to have children to stay as they did in the war. It seems much more like every man for himself now, look at the way that bankers and financiers and footballers are lauded, and pity the poor humble people who care about others - e.g. Teachers, nurses etc.

ZebraOwl · 28/03/2017 20:41

You're welcome LouKout - am glad someone else was decent enough to let your child have a turn on the swing. Am so sorry that the same thing happened to you NoSherryForMe - it's weird how many people seem to think wheelchair means "it's fine to shove past". Ugh.

My Brownies are, as a Unit, really good at self-regulating sharing & turn-taking. Any that aren't naturally so good are either peer-pressured into it or will be told by Leaders that they need to share & how & why to do it.

At the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green there are two rocking horses. We arrived & there was a girl of around 11 on one with a toddler sibling. By the time a dozen Brownies had had 30 seconds on the other horse each, she was still there. We had ours try to count their gallops & name the horse each time to make it race & seem less harsh, but not only was the older girl big enough to know that such horse-hoggery was Not On, the girls' Responsible Adults were sitting & watching all this. A wee boy of about 4 was wanting a turn when we were about 2/3 through & his mummy quite loudly said she'd absolutely wait as we were taking short turns & it was good for him to learn about sharing. Rather a contrast to the man, who, on a previous trip, tried to knock one of my Brownies out of the way & put his child on the horse because he didn't want to wait. It wasn't fair to expect him to wait "for all these many children". We had 8 Brownies at the horses in total, half of whom had had their turns. So it's not as if I'd a whole Brownie Unit taking the things over! We stepped off when I refused to let him queue jump...

Brownies are all well-trained on Letting People Of Trains/Tubes/Buses Before We Get On & are also brilliant at getting into single file - on the right - on escalators then moving back into pairs in croc & clearing out of the way. It's amazing how many people - of all ages & both sexes - will barge into & through a tight-neat crocodile of identically-dressed small children. Even on trips where we only take Sixers & Seconders, so have 8 Brownies, we still get people who will go through rather than round. I tend to hold hands with a couple of the smallest when we're out to make sure they don't get knocked down by adults charging through.

When I was at university I helped at a Unit where the Brownies were really NOT so nice. They were incredibly spoiled & entitled & until I showed up none of the Leaders really tried to challenge that. Finding they had to say please if I was giving things out & that if they didn't then say thank-you I'd take whatever it was back was a serious shock. But it got them to say it. Their behaviour was appalling though, purely through being utterly indulged.

I know that The Youth Of Today have always been a concern, but the general trend towards more selfish behaviour & people getting away with being ruder certainly seems to hold up. Children can certainly get away with behaving worse at school/with their teachers now than they could when I was still there, 15 years ago. University students (& their parents) have increasingly ridiculous ideas about what they're "entitled" too (which seems to boil down to "being spoonfed a degree by some poor lecturer who they seem to think is twiddling their thumbs when not in a lecture theatre"). People then think they're entitled to behave as they like in their workplace & that they're victims of bullying when told otherwise. Parents think their prams/buggies are more entitled to be in the wheelchair space than, um, a wheelchair. Some people apparently feel entitled to use Blue Badge spaces despite not having a sodding badge - or to abuse a friend/relative's badge.

I agree with PPs who suggest the compensation culture has fostered the entitlement one. The rise of social media, enabling people to sound off about their views has probably helped too - echo chambers of entitlement resonating ever louder...

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 28/03/2017 20:44

I don't have an issue with individualism actually - I'm happy to stay out of other people's lives and wish they will do the same for me. It is the encroaching upon other people's space etc which makes people arseholes.

Most of us would behave like that if we were rich enough - most people are not kind. And that's okay if you know that and can live your life accordingly

ZebraOwl · 28/03/2017 20:46

That should be "he stropped off" when talking about the bloke who didn't fancy waiting for the rocking horse...

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 28/03/2017 20:46

Zebra I was on my way back to work the other day and there were a bunch of brownies coming out of the library, so walking across the pavement towards the road. People were trying to get through but at no time did the leaders stop them to let a few people through. That kind of behaviour is twattish because it annoys people.

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 28/03/2017 20:49

As for letting people off trains etc.. not in my experience. They barge on when people are trying to get off, and the leaders do sod. I think you may have a very well trained bunch Grin

ZebraOwl · 28/03/2017 21:03

Livia
When you've got something like that obviously you need to let people through - I'm talking about people when you can easily get round but instead of doing that they sort of barge through diagonally to save 3 seconds. Except knocking small children out of the way will actually slow them down... (To be clear, not asking them to walk in the road or anything!). Or in those dense tube crowds where it's impossible to actually move ahead of anyone & you just have to keep moving, they'll somehow squeeze into the middle of us & then find themselves stuck there until we can exit the station...

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 28/03/2017 21:07

People rush round in their own worlds - it's just the way things are. And they get irritated when something interrupts that. I totally understand that.

The world would be a nicer place if everyone just got on with their lives and left others alone - no hassle, no drama, no inflated sense of entitlement

ZebraOwl · 28/03/2017 21:08

Livia
Sadly, there will be groups out there whose Leaders are pants on this stuff. There are Units whose Leaders are generally a bit pants, frankly - perils of our all being volunteers. Clearly my Brownies are awesome (as I try to remind them quite often) & the very best in the world, but I do also know other Units who're strict about public transport manners. (I once made mine sit in silence on the bus because they were being too loud & silly. That probably doesn't happen elsewhere tbf. I'm really v strict on Manners And Behaviour...)

springflowers11 · 28/03/2017 21:40

Brownies are 7 to 10 years old they are not small children! Maybe if they are so polite they should give way to people sometimes on the pavement instead of you assuming that people coming the other way should always be the ones to move?

scaryclown · 28/03/2017 22:00

I was working at a market once, and there had been road closure signs up for months, as well as loads of signs advertising the market. The person involved had also driven through the market when it was setting up in the morning so he knew it was going to be on. Later he came back and drove up to the barrier at the top end of the market and refused to move - the police came along and he did the 'Its my street, I deserve' etc etc.. the police in the end gave him a walking escort all the way through the market to his house, through throngs of people. The length of the market was about 500 yards, but weirder, his house was on a main road unaffected by the market - he just wanted to park behind his house, rather than in the spaces is front of his house, THAT WERE CLOSER TO HIS HOUSE. The market was due to close two hours later. He spent nearly an hour arguing the case.. Some people are just so monumentally inconsiderate of what the overall picture is - funny thing I thought was that he was a council tenant - so obviously benefiting from the 'lets all help each other' idea of society more than mosts. Silly bugger.

user1473069303 · 28/03/2017 22:08

I was walking the dogs the other morning and a car pulled up on the pavement about 20 metres in front of me. In addition to blocking the pavement and cycle track, madame also decided to leave her car door wide open, blocking what space there was left on the inside of the pavement. I had to shout at her to close her door and let me past. No apology and she must have seen me when pulling up but decided that she'd do what she wanted anyway. Had to laugh though, in addition to putting on her warnings, she'd also switched on her windscreen wipers (she wasn't washing her windscreen and it was a lovely sunny day). Idiot.

The house she was visiting also has a vehicle named after the Ancient Greek word for testicle (which the owner is, as I've had a run-in with him too about blocking the pavement).

Scrowy · 28/03/2017 22:12

I volunteer parking cars at a large annual countryside event.

Every year without fail someone nearly runs down one of the volunteers. Every year without fail every single parking volunteer is verbally abused by people parking. All because they are asking people to park in a line/order and people don't want to because they feel they are special and should be allowed to park wherever the fuck they like.

neverthetwainshallmeet · 28/03/2017 22:14

ChrisYoung

Good on you for the parent/child thing. Winds me right up when I see people parking in them purely because they've got ridiculously big cars and no child, whilst I'm struggling to get the car seat containing my heavy 5 month old out of the back seat because I can't open the door any wider. And parents who use them for older children Hmm

I once left a relatively polite note on somebody's windscreen (couple in their 60s in a huge landrover) asking them to have some consideration and to leave the spaces for parents with children in future.

ZebraOwl · 28/03/2017 22:41

springflowers
My sincere apologies for clearly deeply upsetting you by mischaracterising Brownies. Might I enquire into the official definition of a "small" child? I've obviously missed it somehow - perhaps this is one of those secrets they only let parents in on... Clearly in contrast to the average reception child, for example, they're not - and talking to I'd ask them to let little/small children do xyz. Lots of them are physically small though - which obviously not all Brownies will be, but, er, the ones in question are. And clearly I'd never refer to them as small children in their presence, but I'd not do that to Rainbows either, because they too have their dignity.

Not all the people I'm talking about are coming in the opposite direction - v usual, in fact, for someone to slice through from towards the back of the line. Common sense, never mind courtesy, surely dictates that one person move a small distance, rather than having someone try to steer a crocodile of children about the place, almost certainly into the way of more people, bearing in mind this is almost invariably in Inner/central London. If it's someone who'll visibly struggle to move of course we move for them, just as we move into single file on narrow pavements. It's like if I'm out on my own I'd move for someone pushing a pram, or on crutches, or in a wheelchair - or indeed a party of schoolchildren - as it's easier for me to move out of their way. Well, if I'm in my own wheelchair that might make it a bit harder, but generally speaking...

(Are you perhaps jumping on me as you're a tiny bit vexed I objected to your earlier ableism? Maybe just a leetle bit? Hmm)

Owllady · 28/03/2017 22:48

I'm really laughing at the OP :o thanks

QueenArseClangers · 28/03/2017 22:55

Springy is obviously a goady fucker extraordinaire.
Reminds me a bit of a poster who used a similar seasonal moniker- Autumn Leaves? Hmm